Preparation:Heat oil in a pan, add green chillies, chopped garlic, curry leaves, onion and fry till onion turns golden brown.Mix the chopped tomato, and salt. let it cook for 2 mins.Add the spices and chopped okra. Mix gently to coat the okra in all the spices.Add some water if its too thick, and tamarind paste. Let it Cook for 10 mins.Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice :)

This vegetable Pattie is very simple and can be made in 25 mins with any sort of vegetables :)) In India, it's called as Vegetable Cutlet. It can be taken as a snack or as a breakfast with burger buns. I just love this with ketchup. Ingredients:Fresh bread slices - 2Egg - 1 (optional)Milk or Water- 1 tbspBoiled Vegetable - 2 cups (I used potatoes, peas, beans)Cumin - 1tspRed Chilly powder - 1 tspsaltGinger garlic paste - 1tbspturmeric powder - 1tspFennel seeds- 1 tsp (optional)Garammasala - 1 tbspPepper powder - 1tsp

Preparation:Mix the fresh bread pieces with egg and milk or water. Let it soak for few mins and mash it in to paste.

This curry can be prepared using Garbanzo, Black eye or any type of beans you like. It is a very tasty and wide known curry in india, Perfect combo for any indian bread. You can also use the canned one instead dry(dry requires 7 hrs soaking). I prepared this curry using the mix of garbanzo and black eye peas.

Preparation:Soak the garbanzo and black eye peas in water for 7 hours. Cook them in 1 cup water, salt and turmeric. Keep aside.Take one hand full of cooked beans, ginger, cumin, pepper corns, garammasala,tomato,chilly powder and ground to fine paste.Heat oil in pan, add the chopped onion and fry to golden brown, add the ground paste and let in cook in medium heat till the raw smell fades.Add the cooked beans in to the gravy and add water if its too thick, dry fenugreek, thyme,1 tbsp of tamarind paste and cook in low heat for 5 mins.Serve hot with Indian bread.

Note: Before serving the curry add a tea spoon of lemon juice. It enhances the taste.

Cinnamon is the very first dessert I have tasted in US, and its my no.1 favorite dessert too.It tastes best when it served warm with a loads of cream cheese frosting.. I love 'em... Cinnamon bun is originated in Sweden and named as Kanelbulle(meaning - 'Cinnamon bun') Sweden celebrates October 4th as a cinnamon bun day.I made the cinnamon rolls using the ready mix from a leading brand, it turned out really well. I also kept only half hour waiting time for the dough to rise.

Base Ingredients:1/2 cup Luke warm water, 1 egg, 2 cups dough mix (contains the mix of 2 cups flour and 1/8th sugar and pinch of salt), 1 tbsp active yeast.Extra spoon of all purpose flour for kneading.Blend egg and water , add the dough mix and yeast till it forms a dough. Use flour for kneading and to remove stickiness from hand.

Preparation:kneading is the key to get soft cinnamon rolls. Knead well till it gets non sticky in hands,transfer the dough to lightly floured surface and roll out the kneaded dough to a rectangle.Spread 2tbsp butter and sprinkle generously the cinnamon topping on the surface, Roll up the rectangle dough in to a tight cylinder and cut in to small slices and place in a greased pan with distant from one another. Cover with foil and let it stand for 30 mins to rise. Pre-heat the oven to 400F and cook for 17 mins.Remove from oven and coat with cream cheese frosting or with plain icing,Cream cheese Icing Ingredients:1/4 cup cream cheese, 3 tbsp milk, 11/2 cups white-powder sugar. Serve warm with a hot cup of coffee :) .. Yummm Enjoy!!

Method:Cook rice, lentil, vegetable with 5 cups of water and 1 tbsp of turmeric.Dry fry the wet spices and ground to fine paste by adding enough water.Heat oil in a pan, add mustard, onion and fry till onion turns golden brown. Add the ground paste, sambhar powder and fry till the raw smell subsides. Add salt and pour in to the cooked rice. Gently mix well till the rice coated with all the ingredients and add tamarind paste.Heat 1tbsp of clarified butter and fry cashews and add in to the rice.Garnish with cilantro.Serve hot with raita.

This is the mixture of yellow split peas, onions and spices, that are ground to coarse paste and deep fried in oil. Very simple recipe and a quite filling snack for any time of the day. These are called as 'Dhalvada' in India and 'Gateaux Piments' in Mauritius.

Mauritius is well know as a vacation spot. It is truly a romantic place, natural beauty and very relaxing place as well. I had been there for couple of weeks before few years, still it stands out to be my favorite vacation spot. The best compliment to the country is the weather during the summer or atleast I enjoyed the weather in summer! I remember the quotes from Author Mark Twain : "Mauritius was made first and then the heaven was copied after Mauritius". May be its purely depends on the way you see it!

I never had a problem for Indian food when I was in Mauritius (City-Port Louis). The Mauritian Culinary contains the combination of French, Indian, Chinese and African. I was even surprised to find some road side shops which has authentic biriyani and falooda as we do in India :) The deep fried lentil cakes are also known as 'DhalWada' in India and they are named as 'Gateaux Piments' in Mauritius. Even though the native language is Creole, people are fluent in English (the national language) and French. But most of the Indian-Mauritians still have their roots and speaks in Hindi(Indian national language).I must say, for the first time in my life I saw a very graceful sea (there wasn't much of a wave) and the water was so clear.

Most of the souvenir are represented in the form of a cute bird, I was so ignorant, I admit! that I don't know what that bird called as until I ask the customs officer at the airport;why this bird is so special and displayed in the form of toys in almost all the stores? He laughed at me and said its Dodo (pronounced as Do-Du) Mauritius was the only know habitat for the Dodo bird!! Hummm interesting! I bought two Dodo toys, one as key chain and other a big fur toy.

The botanical garden was so wonderful and I could not believe that I had looked at the lotus leaves which were bigger than the ears of an elephant.. huh... ears of a huge elephant. That is the uniqueness of this garden. No where in the world that carries a record of a lotus leaves bigger than this one!!Shown the pic below:

Things to Do! when you visit Mauritius:

Very basic thing is to enjoy the clean beach as much as you can!

Try the authentic food

Have a quick peek in the botanical garden

If you are interested in Diamonds, just ask your local guide they will guide you to the diamond market. I had been there its worth the visit.

Diving in Mauritius is a pretty cool things, Don't miss it.

If you are a water sports lover - So many are in the way.

Seven Colored Sand - You can see multi colored sand due to volcanic rocks that became ashes with time in Chamarel

Chamarel Waterfall - wonderfull waterfall in the village of Chamarel

Tamarin bay - well know for Surfing

My favorite month of the year is about to start, yes I am talking about December(Holiday time). I gotta plan for my holiday trip. See you soon with a different travel-holiday spot.

Kurma or Korma can be prepared with any types of Vegetables. I had a pack of Soy Nuggets to add in to the kurma. You can get Soy chunks in any Indian Groceri shops. Soak the soys in warm water for 2 hours before cooking.

Method:Make fine paste of all the 'to grind' ingredients using enough water.Heat pan, with 1 tbsp oil, fry the lima beans for 3 mins. Remove and keep aside.In the same pan, fry the soy-chunks for 5 mins, remove and keep aside.Add onion in the same pan fry till it turns golden brown, add turmeric powder, coriander powder fry till the raw smells subsides.Mix the chopped tomato, salt and potato. Fry for 2 mins.Add the ground paste and bring to a nice boil. Mix the cauliflower, soy chunks and lima beans allow it to cook in medium flame for 7 mins.Add the Peas and let it cook for 2 mins. (Peas only takes two mins to cook) and turn off the heat.Garnish with Methi leaves Or Cilantro.Serve hot with rice or roti and Enjoy!!

Method:Grind all the mentioned (To grind) ingredients to fine paste using enough water and keep aside.heat pan with little oil, add mustard seeds,Curry leaves, onion, hing, turmeric and fry for 5 mins. Add the chopped or crushed tomatoes and allow to boil.Add salt, 1 cup water and the ground paste in to the boiling gravy. Let it cook in low heat for 15 mins ans turn off the heat and garnish with cilantro.Serve with idli or lentil pancake or Dosa.

Method:Wash and soak the grind ingredients for 4 hours, grind to fine paste by adding red chillies, ginger and salt. keep aside.Heat pan with oil, add cumin, curry leaves, coconut, onion, asafotida & turmeric. let it cool and add this mixture and cilantro in to the lentil paste and mix well.Heat the flat pan and pour a spoon full of batter and make dosa.Serve with sugar or Aviyal, Sambar.

Method:Rinse and soak the rice for half hour.In wide pan, add rice and 51/2 cups of water. Cook in medium heat, till the rice gets the texture shown in pic or till the rice gets cooked. Mix the sugar and milk. Stir well till sugar dissolves completely.Turn off the heat and add the grated coconut.Serve as dessert or snack.

This is a very famous Kerala dish from South-India, prepared traditionally using shallots. It can be made with different vegetables. I used bottle gourd, goes well with rice, roti, puttu and idli, dosa.

Lemon rice is very simple to make. You can prepare this with the left over rice or with freshly cooked rice. Each grain should be separated, adding a spoon of ghee or oil while cooking rice can help in the separation of the grain.

Method:heat oil and add the mustard seeds, after it splutters add the gram(channa) dhal, hing,cumin, red chillies, uraddhal, green chillies, curry leaves, ginger, turmeric powder.Stir for 30 seconds.Add the 3 tbsp of lemon juice and salt.Stir for 10 seconds.Mix the cooked rice and gently mix well to coat all the rice in turmeric.

Hint: After cooking the rice, allow the rice to cool completely, in that way each grain will stand out separately and coated nicely in turmeric.

Sometimes, I feel my day starts just to have the lettuce sandwich as my breakfast with herbal tea. This ain't no joke, I'm telling ya the fact! Seriously, its dead boring to think of having the universal standard- cereal and hormone injected milk in the morning.

I'm quite particular in having my breakfast before 8a.m, why? may be I'm having a ridiculous belief that, its gonna boost up my metabolism and keep my energy level up through out the indolent day.

Since I take lettuce bread sandwich on seven days a week, I'm having a big lens over the nutrition facts of the bread.

I love Whole Grain and Multi Grain breads. This has low GI value (GI - Glycemic Index; responsible for converting the Carbs in to Glucose in our bloodstream. The more low it dissolves in to blood, the better.) Whole grain has low GI index(50), good source of fiber, it helps in weight management and really tastes yum. Multi Grain has GI - 48, apparently it is lesser than whole grain. There are interesting varieties in grain bread like flax seed, 7-grain, 12-grain, sunflower seed, so you would never go disappointed with the taste. I prefer the 'Bakers Inn whole grain'. Trust me, I am not endorsing this product, it just has a longer expiry period than the usual ones.

If you think that you are addicted to the taste of Whole Wheat ( GI - Medium- 67) and White bread (GI - high-71), you should look atleast for Whole Grain Wheat and Whole Grain white breads instead blindly choosing plain white bread.

White bread is clearly not for my cup of tea :0) Lets eat consciously and live healthy.

Method:Cook the rice and dal together with 5 cups water.Once the rice is cooked, add the jaggery and stir well.Add the milk and let it cook in low heat for 2 mins.Fry the cashews in clarified butter and mix in to the cooking rice.Stir well for 2 min's and turn off the heat.Serve hot or cold.